Many middleware solutions are staking their claim to be the information exchange backbone of the IoT. Competing consortia, such as AllSeen and Open Interconnect Consortium, and the myriad of protocol choices – MQTT, XMPP, AMQP, COAP, DDS – present a confusing alphabet soup for Thing developers.

A comprehensive discussion of these options is beyond the scope of this article. Ultimately, however, most devices will use the lingua franca of the web, RESTful web services via HTTP and COAP (for constrained wireless devices), because they enable Things to more quickly and seamlessly integrate into the Web.

We find ourselves in the midst of an exciting time, when the number of objects has recently eclipsed the number of people (Personal Computers, smartphones) on the web.

Yet this is just the beginning of a new world in which the Internet will be dominated by smart objects making our lives better and yielding incredible business opportunities for developers of devices for the Internet of Things, especially those that approach their craft with an effective, future-proof strategy. // FG

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Making the IoT safe and secure

Making the IoT safe and secure

In the near future the Internet will be dominated by smart objects that will make our lives better and might yield tremendous business opportunities. However, to fulfill that promise it is important to take architectural and methodical approaches for the development of safe and secure applications into account.

Looking for the weakest link

Developers and product managers should keep in mind that attackers always search for the weakest link in the chain. In addition, devices that are used at the edge of the IoT generate a lot of sensitive data. Zero-trust strategies, secure architectures, the right tools for the trade and a web-oriented communications strategy are therefore indispensable for the security in the IoT.

Secure software engineering with PHASE

Secure software engineering with PHASE

Architectural considerations are important steps to take toward secure systems in an IoT context. But they should be accompanied by the right methodology for software development. David Kleidermacher, CTO of Green Hills Software, recommends an integrated approach called PHASE (Principles of High Assurance Software Engineering). PHASE describes the following set of five basic guidelines: 1) minimal implementation, 2) componentization, 3) least privilege, 4) secure development process and 5) independent expert validation.

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* David Kleidermacher is the Chief Technology Officer of Green Hills Software.